Sword Art after Floor 75
by NightLantern
Summary: What if Kirito had declined Kayaba's offer and decided to prepare for the final battle by leveling up. What would have happened? Sorry if summary seems lack-luster. Terrible at making short versions of things, but good at making stories. Please try this out.
1. Chapter 1: Green from Coming Red

_Hello fan-fictioners, if that's a word. This is my first story in a while, but I think I'm a better writer since last time. Try this story out and review please! I love reading reviews, positive, negative, I don't care just please review. Anyway, I don't own anything related to Sword Art Online and its main cast. I own only my creations and their back-stories. I know this chapter is small, but according to people who keep reading, it's better after the first chapter. Have fun!_

**Chapter 1: Green from Coming Red**

**Kirito's POV**

_I am a coward._ That is all I could think to myself. I can't believe that I gave up a deal with Kayaba saying that'd he'd free us if I beat him. I couldn't get the _what ifs _out of my head. What if I had accepted and won. Everyone, including Asuna, Klein, Agil, and the others would have been free of this nightmare. We'd be waking up in different hospitals, and the only thing we'd have to worry about is finding each other and celebrating. But, instead I said "no" to Kayaba's offer. _I am such a coward_.

"Kirito, you are not a coward," said the orange-haired girl in front of me. That's Asuna, my in-game, and hopefully, eventually, in the real world, wife. I must have been thinking out loud because she said that as if I've been repeating myself. Asuna said, "You decided to lay off the duel with Kayaba just to make sure you were going to be prepared, to the last detail, to beat him." I answered, "I know, but if I had accepted the duel with him, and won, everyone would be out of this game and we could actually meet in real life."

I sagged down even more into the chair I was sitting on, showing my despair. "Look, if you want to mope around all day, that's fine with me, but since you can't change the past, wouldn't starting to prepare for the eventual match with Kayaba just make more sense. Also, no one blames you for backing out of a fight with no guarantee of victory," Asuna told me. That cheered me up a bit, but I still felt a little down.

Then, she stood up and equipped her armor. "Okay, then," she said, "if I can't convince you to stop being depressed, I'll force you. Get up, equip your armor and weapons and we'll go to level 73 to train a little." I answered, "Okay," and equipped my Coat of Midnight and Elucidator. We went to level 73 and stayed there for a while. It was a forest area on the floor. Some of the monsters to fight were dark ents and giant versions of wild animals. This was the tame part of this floor, which is what Asuna said we should start in.

My mind was definitely clearing up and I didn't feel so down anymore. I was chopping through monsters when suddenly, I heard something. I froze after killing the last monster and signaled Asuna to do the same. After a small amount of time, we heard rustling in the bushes. _It must be a red player._ I thought that anyway. The bush was big enough to hide a human and the entire bush rustled. I grabbed Asuna's arm and dragged her away. I was not in the mood to deal with a red player.

We ran for thirty minutes until she yelled at me, "SLOW DOWN!" I did so thinking, _how many times did she scream that before I noticed?_ We stopped running and she asked me, "Why are we running? Kayaba said that the 'dual wield' skill goes to the strongest player. Since you have that skill, that declares you the 'Strongest Player.' Why did we run?" I told her, "I'm not in the mood to fight PKs and I had a bad gut feeling."

"You were right to," a voice said. Then, a teenage boy jumped down to the ground and faced us. He had brown hair and hazel eyes. "In the state you're in, you couldn't beat me if you tried," he said. "What do you mean?" I asked. He smirked and then, before I knew it, he snuck behind me, grabbed Asuna, and injected her with something. He took his scythe and held the blade to her neck. I don't know why Asuna didn't move because she could easily escape if she tried.

"I injected her with a paralysis potion. It's her weakness. Take away her speed, and what do you have?" he said. I wanted to hit him so badly, but his scythe looked high enough in level to kill Asuna in one neck cut. "Why are you doing this?" I asked. He answered, "To snap you out of this mood you've been having. You see, you have no physical weakness. I mean, you leave the head open, but that's probably just to lure the enemy to attack there, isn't it?" How did he know that? "So you see," he continued, "Your mental weaknesses are the obvious way to go, and now that you can't even accept a single fact, you can't protect those. This girl, Asuna, she is your biggest mental weakness, which you have left to rot out in the street all because of your self-loathing. Snap out of it!"

Then, something sparked in me. Don't know what happened, but I moved as fast as I could and pushed the scythe away from him. I looked into his eyes to see his reaction, but he just smiled and pointed to the space above his head. I didn't understand why because as soon as I looked back from where he pointed, he was gone. I grabbed Asuna and brought her to the ground. I kept thinking as I gave Asuna the paralyze-heal crystal. _What was he doing? Why did he point above his head?_ Then, I figured it out.

As soon as she recovered, Asuna asked "What do you think that was about?" I answered her, "I don't know, but there's something that bothers me about him?" She asked, "Why? What's wrong?" I told her, "That player, his cursor was green."

_So how is it? Good? Bad? Suspenseful? Boring? Please give me feedback, and tell me what to do better or with more focus. Review as much as you can, please!_


	2. New Guild Strategist

_Hello and here's a new chapter. Thank you to EquinoxKnight101 and Agent 94 for the review. Like I said, I love reading reviews. I will attempt to make the chapters longer and last chapter was mainly just to show Kirito's feelings right after Kayaba's offer being declined. The story will be more upbeat, I promise. Anyway, keep the reviews coming because this is being written the day after the first chapter came out and 98 people have already read this. Hope you enjoy this._

**Chapter 2: A new, but not welcome, member of the family**

**Asuna's POV**

"That player, his cursor was green."

That was Kirito and I couldn't believe him. "What do you mean it was green? He was about to kill me! How can someone be so prepared to kill anyone for the first time and not give any sign of regret or weakness in his form?" I asked him.

"I don't know," he answered back, "I don't get it either, but right now, we should head back home and piece things together."

We headed back to floor 22 and invited our friends in. To be clear, the ones there were Liz, Silica, Klein, and Agil. We told them every detail about what happened. "And that's what happened," I finished.

"Geez," Liz spoke, "This guy sounds really tough. How was he able to sneak up on you two?"

Kirito said, "He got pretty far, but I heard him and started running with Asuna. We ran for half-an-hour, but he still caught up."

I said, "He kidnapped me and held a scythe to my throat, but instead of just killing me, he talked to Kirito about his brooding, but he was actually able to snap him out of it."

Klein asked, "What do you mean?"

Kirito answered, "He kept saying that I couldn't defend my weaknesses, including Asuna. Then, I just snapped and tried to rescue her. I hit the scythe away and then he showed me his green cursor right before running away without a trace."

Silica then asked, "So what do you want to do about it?"

Then, I explained, "We want to find him and see if he's actually a bad guy. If he is, we'll fight, and beat him. If he isn't, we'll invite him into the guild."

"WHAT!?" everyone other than Kirito and me exclaimed. "What are you thinking?" "This guy attacked you?" "Did you lose your brain cells from that experience?"

Everyone kept yelling out their concerns until Kirito screamed out, "SHUT UP!" Everyone went silent.

I continued, "Look, yes he did attack us, and yes I might have died, but think about it. If he's that powerful, that strategic, and a green player, why not invite him in? After Heath- Kayaba left, so many members of the Knights of the Blood Oath left the guild thinking that it was cursed. We need new players to show the public that it isn't cursed and a strong player would attract more players. We could restart the guild and unite everyone from this one guy."

Everyone looked down, thinking hard on everything I just said. This lasted for a few minutes until Kirito slammed his fist onto a table and explained, "Look, I don't care if you help us or not, but we are going to try either way. The way I see it, the faster we find him, the faster we get this over with. You helping us, we'll find him faster, but if you don't, we'll just keep looking for as long as it takes. So, are you in or out?"

The others looked around at each other. Then, Silica nods and says, "I'm in." Everyone looked at her. "I owe Kirito and Asuna a lot, so if they want my help, I'll give it my all." That triggered it, and everyone said that they were going to help."

Kirito and I smiled and thanked everyone. Then, we went over the plan. Kirito said, "Klein, you get around quite a lot and many people respect you. Try to see if they have any information. Liz, you have plenty of business, see if you can find anyone who might know a thing or two." They both nodded and left. "Agil, no one is better at finding things out than you. You have more connections than a power plant. I'm sure you know what to do." He nodded and went back to his shop.

Silica asked, "What can I do?"

I told her, "You are the easiest person in this game for anyone to trust, and you do still need to train a bit. So you will go out and train and if you see anyone, ask them if they have information."

Silica asked, "Was that an insult or a compliment?"

Kirito answered, "It was a compliment coupled with a suggestion."

Silica said, "Okay." She ran off and took Pina with her.

Kirito said out loud, "That went better than expected."

"I know," a random voice said. Then he said, "I thought for sure that Klein would deny helping." Then, he showed himself from the ceiling. "Hello," he said. We stared at him for a few minutes in surprise.

After a while he said, "Awkward silence. Geez, I thought some yelling would happen by now. Some 'Why did you try to kill me's?' Maybe a 'What are you doing here?' You guys really disappoint." He jumped down to the floor.

Then I asked, "How long were you up there?"

The player explained, "Long enough that I heard each of your friends come into the house. Also, my name is Yonatan. Thanks for asking. Anyway, you're welcome." I turned to Kirito who, with a strange look on his face, said, "For what?"

Yonatan answered, "For fixing your mood? For getting you to ask for help for the first time in your life? For joining the guild? Your choice."

Kirito then asked, "Wait, you only attacked Asuna to fix my mood?"

Yonatan nodded and, told us, "And I'd do it again."

I asked him, "You're joining the guild?"

He looked at me and said, "Yep. I'm your new strategist."

"Strategist?" I asked.

He nodded and said, "Yes, I am literally the smartest player in this game. That's shown from my unique skill, Master Strategy Mode. It is received by only the smartest person in the game."

"What does it do?" I asked him.

"It's kind of like the appraisal skill, only ten times as powerful as the skill filled to the max with extra powers. I can analyze players, items, weapons, monsters, and even bosses. I can analyze their levels, obviously, their skills, and even their weaknesses. Then, I can formulate multiple strategies to use their weaknesses against them. So yes, I'm your new strategist."

I looked at Kirito and I looked at each other. Kirito then explained to Yonatan, "You can join, but we'll have to test you for your actual skills."

Then, Yonatan said, "Reasonable. When do we start?"

Kirito said, "How about now?" Yonatan nodded and followed us out of the house.

**Switch to Yonatan's POV**

We went to floor 75 and used the monster attracter item. The test was that Kirito and I would compete to see who can defeat more monsters faster. Asuna yelled out, "Start!" I saw Kirito start off hitting all of the monsters he could reach, but I haven't even tried to start, yet. I figure I could give him a head start. I let him fight with my eyes closed for thirty seconds, and then I opened my eyes. I looked around at all the monsters. There were ninety at start, but now there are seventy. I saw their abilities and weak spots for three seconds and made a strategy while doing so. Thank you Master Strategist Mode.

As soon as I ran the strategy through my head a couple times, I pulled out my scythe and attack all of the monsters in their weak spots, making many one-hit KO's. I barraged the monsters for 15 seconds, and then there were none left. In the time it took for me to make a strategy and pull it off, I killed sixty monsters while Kirito killed ten more. Just as expected. I looked over at Asuna whose mouth was hanging open at what I just did. Maybe if I had gotten 75% of the monsters instead of just 66%, it would have been impressive.

"I guess I should have done better, huh?" I asked.

"The hell are you talking about?!" Asuna screamed out. "You just killed 60 monsters on the second to latest floor unlocked in 20 seconds."

I told her, "I know, I should have done the plan with seventy five monsters in 15 seconds." Kirito proclaimed, "You can do that?" I nodded.

Kirito then said, "No need for any more tests, you're hired. Let's go back to my house and message everyone to come so we can invite you into the group."

We went back to floor 22 and invited everyone over. Everyone looked at me funny, though. I guess my first impression was based off an attack on their leaders. They won't say it, but it's true. The girl known as Silica at least tried to talk to me. She's so cute, in a, "Wanna eat you up," kind of way. She asked me about how I play the game and I answered, "I analyze all the opponents' weaknesses and use them to my advantage. She focused for a small bit, and then exclaimed, "That's why you attacked Asuna and not Kirito directly. Kirito's biggest weaknesses are his connections."

"That's right, but only when he's doubting himself. Otherwise, they're his greatest strength, as well," I explained. "You know, you're a very smart girl. A lot of people must really underestimate you, don't they?" Silica looked back with a bit of a sad face. I put my hand on her head and said, "Why don't I train you? You'll be a lot stronger by the end of it."

She smiled and answered, "Okay!"

"I warn you, however, that I can get very annoying. I'll take you to my secret training grounds later," I said, "but for right now, let's try to get these guys to trust me." I went into the center of the room and screamed out, "Hello everyone!" The others just kept staring at me. I then said, "Please, don't everyone say 'Hello' at once. Okay, what the hell is everyone's deal?"

Klein yelled, "Our deal with you is that you attacked Kirito and Asuna with malicious intent."

I answered, "Oh please. As if I would've actually hurt them. The scythe I had equipped is a special weapon that only heals. It's impossible to hurt anyone with it. Watch." I took out the scythe and cut my hand off. My HP didn't go down at all, though.

"Okay," Agil said, "but how do we know cutting off the head of a person with that thing doesn't kill them?"

I gave Agil the scythe and said, "Okay, try to cut my head off with that scythe." Silica, Asuna, and Kirito tried to rush to me and say no to that, but I stopped them. "Go ahead," I said. Agil brought the scythe back and then –slash—my head came off. Everyone except Agil gasped. Then my head grew back. "See, harmless," I said.

Agil nodded and said, "Alright, but I'm keeping an eye on you." They all agreed with him and things started to pick up.

After a while, everyone decided to go back to where ever it is that they go to sleep. I said goodbye to all of them and thanked Kirito and Asuna. I went to floor 38, where I keep my house. I keep my house in the wild. I'll admit that isn't something that many people do, but I don't like having NPC's as neighbors. They are always so perfect and it just annoys me to hell that they don't do anything amusing. No arguing, no events, nothing. So boring. So, I keep my house in the wild. I went to sleep anticipating what would happen next time.

_Thanks for reading everyone. The day this chapter is uploaded is my birthday, but I've been sick today of all days. I'm sick on my birthday, so if this chapter's a bit lack-luster, I'm sorry. Anyway, keep reviewing because like I've said, I love reading reviews, whether positive or negative._


	3. Chapter 3: A New, Unexpected Enemy

_Hello. Sorry about not updating for a while. My computer had a virus and I needed to re-install Microsoft Word, all my games, and lock my accounts back into some websites. Anyway, I'm back, and I'll keep updating. Also, if anyone has story ideas, don't be afraid to request because someone might have a great idea, but not be a good writer or doesn't have time to. So, have fun reading and don't forget to review._

**Yonatan's POV**

**Chapter 3: A New, Unexpected Enemy**

It's been a week since I joined the Knights of the Blood Oath, and became its strategist. I've started to earn the trust of some of the members. We gained some new recruits over the week. My personal favorite are a boy named Eidan who uses a double-edged long sword with a large ricasso (kind of like the Master Sword from Legend of Zelda), and a girl named Ariel who uses Zweihӓnder (She is really strong. She can use a Zweihӓnder like no one else). I normally take them and Silica on parties to gain EXP. Every other day, however, I take Silica to my secret training grounds.

I'm not going to tell you where it is, but it is very surprising no one's found it, yet. Anyway, we found the boss room on floor 76, and the guild is planning something out. We went to our base on Floor 75. I said, "Okay, let's get this started. We know absolutely nothing about this boss. Do we?"

"Yeah," Kirito answered, "So? We've never actually known a lot about the boss we're fighting."

"How about we wait for a few seconds?"

"Why?" Asuna asked.

"I sent out a scout to gain some information about the boss."

"But what if they get in trouble?" They said together.

"Don't worry. They're instructed to send a message in case they can't escape the room about 15 minutes ago. Since I didn't get a message, they're coming back. According to my calculations, they will come in here in about 3.. 2.." I pointed to the opening.

"We're back," Silica said. I smiled smug to the others in the tent.

"What did you find out?"

Eidan answered, "The boss has huge horns, a blue mane, and is devil-looking. His claws were as long as my long sword."

Ariel continued, "He has a broadsword. His minions were angel-looking with black wings and short daggers."

"Good job, each of you gets a cookie." I gave each of them a chocolate chip cookie and they all said at the same time, "Arigato." For those who don't know, that means 'Thank You' in Japanese. (You learn something new every day, and if you already knew that, have a cookie)

"Okay, now that means that speed is important for the minions, and resistance is important for the boss," I explained.

Klein said, "Good call." Yes! My first compliment.

"Thanks. I suggest that we put Asuna in charge of a group that will use speed to beat the minions. Then, Kirito and Agil will lead a group starting off with defense. I'll analyze the enemy and find its weakness. Afterwards, we'll attack him there until he's finished off. Just in case of red players on the way there, I want everyone to be in groups of five with each group being around twenty feet away from each other."

Kirito and the others nodded and I said, "Let's head out."

We walked through the dungeon and defeated any monsters on the way. No one died and we all made it to the boss room. We entered and the information we received was correct.

"Okay everyone. We all share the exp and boss drop goes to the final hit," Kirito said.

Asuna and her group started taking care of the minions. Kirito's group defended against the bosses attacks while I analyzed. It took about five seconds to find his weakness. His horns are his biggest soft spot, but his back gave more than regular damage.

"Kirito, follow my lead. Everyone else, aim for the back."

Kirito and I leaped up to the head of the boss. I hit the horn on the right while Kirito hit the others. We cut his horns left and right. We started to combo until the boss, which until now I ignored the fact that his name is Satera, grabbed for us, but we dodged and landed on the ground. We looked up at his health bars. We got rid of one out of six of them.

This boss seems to be more advance than the others. He keeps defending his horns so we can't attack them. In order to counter this, I prescribe a new plan.

"Asuna! Get half of your group and attack the horns when they're open!"

Asuna nodded at me and directed part of her group and attacked Satera's horns when we created openings. Everything was going well. We were down three life bars and had three to go. No one has died just yet and everything is going according to plan. Then, something extremely extraordinarily strange happened that no one had expected.

"What the hell just happened?" Silica asked me.

I looked at her dead in the eyes and said, "I'm not sure how or why, but-"

Someone screamed out, "THE BOSS SPLIT INTO SIX!"

He was right. The bosses split into six different entities. Each one had an entire bar of health. I initially thought that their strength would be a sixth of the original boss, but it was equal in every way, including the number of minions sent out. I needed to come up with a new plan. Then, I figured it out. I called everyone to a corner far enough away to explain the plan.

"Okay, this wasn't expected, but I have an idea. Eidan and Ariel you one of the bosses. Klein and Agil, you take another. Asuna and Kirito. Silica and I. Everyone else split into groups of six and try to take down the bosses and minions. As soon as everyone is done with their boss, find the closest one and help defeat it. Keep going until we win. Everyone ready?"

Everybody nodded and charged off. As Silica and I reached the boss, we prepared to fight. First, Pina shot a few fire balls at the Satera clone and did a few points of damage. Then, I went up to the horns and sliced them both. As Satera riled in pain, Silica jumped up and cut through his back all the way down. He was down by a third of his health.

I decided to use a new special skill Silica and I developed. I made a signal towards her in order to tell her. She nodded. She told Pina to aim for the eyes and Pina did so. While Pina distracted the boss, we charged the attack with our weapons. Then, Silica hopped onto my Scythe and I launched her up at the boss.

She cut the boss in the center vertically. Then, I cut horizontally making a perpendicular bisector (if you don't know what that means, look it up). We cut lines connecting the edges, and when a diamond was created, we attacked the dead center of the diamond with both of our weapons. We were able to get rid of half of all of his health points.

We finished him off by combo-ing the horns while it reeled in pain. With one HP left, Silica cut his horn and he disappeared into computer bits. When I looked around, there were only two bosses left. There was one that Klein and Agil were fighting with Eidan and Ariel at a tenth of its HP and another one at a twentieth of its HP being fought by Kirito and Asuna as well as the other members of the guild. I decided to help defeat Klein and Agil's.

By the time I reached the boss I was aiming for, Kirito's Satera was defeated and the one I was going for only needed one hit. I charged up and hit the horn. The boss disappeared into bits and the EXP was distributed and I received the last hit bonus. It said "Hood of Father Nature."

I looked and counted. Somehow, miraculously, everyone survived. No one was dead. Even better, man people leveled up. I smiled at Kirito and his little band and they smiled back.

"We did it!" Klein yelled out, "and with no deaths. That's something to be proud of."

He patted me on the back and said, "Nice job."

I gleamed briefly and told everyone, "Let's head back to base."

We got outside cheering and screaming. We ran, jumped, danced, or anything else you can think of. That was until we saw him. In our path was a red player. He was covered in a cloak and had a smirk showing as his only showing feature.

"Good job," he said, "I watched your battle and let me just say, you did very well. You must have a great strategist."

I stepped up, but Kirito held his hand out and said, "What's it to you?"

He answered, "Well, I just think that such a good strategist should have been prepared for this."

He held his hands out and a bunch of people arrived, all with red cursors. The guild members, including the A-Team (you know who I'm talking about) looked a little worried. I wouldn't blame them. We did just go through a hard battle.

However, I just walked up to him and looked him straight in the eyes and smiled. I said, "Yes, I suppose a good strategist would be prepared for an ambush from red players coming back from a high-level boss fight, but do you want to know what's even better than that?"

He had a smug look on his and asked, "What?"

I answered, "Someone who not only prepared for that, but prepared for a counter-counter ambush." I raised my hands, and then many people came up behind the ambushers including the ambushers that were prepared to fight against a counter-ambush, followed by people I knew outside of the game.

"Your move," told him.

He lost his smug face and yelled out, "Retreat!"

His red guild mates ran away from the scene and he said, "You haven't seen the last of Rose Pegasus!"

He then ran away with his guild mates, then I yelled out, "Thanks for the help guys! You'll get your rewards later."

They all smiled or nodded or agreed.

I walked up to Kirito and Asuna saying, "Well that was eventful."

Asuna looked at me asking, "How did you know that we would be chased down by a red guild?"

I answered, "I'll explain everything back at base."

We all walked back to the base where everyone settled down except for the A-Team who came to talk to me.

Kirito started off, "What was that all about?"

"Look, I've been investigating a red guild called Rose Pegasus. This guild has been terrorizing many players since the start of the game, but recently, they've been more organized. They fell under better leadership, is what I'm assuming and I'm hoping to defeat them. They know about me, though, so I needed to figure out a way to lure them out. You were the best option. You guys have the best chance of beating them and helping me stop them from hurting anyone ever again."

Asuna asked, "Why did you hide this from us?"

"The best bait is the one that doesn't know they are."

Klein said, "Why didn't you just ask? We would have helped."

"I didn't think you would help someone who attacked your leaders out of the blue without some kind of opening."

Everyone stared down at the floor.

Soon, Kirito said, "We'll help you, but you have a little more trust to earn to get our friendship."

"Thank you, I thought so."

I looked at everyone, who didn't look anywhere near me. I thought if this could go better at any point today, but it ended badly in every situation I could think of, so I left after twenty minutes of sitting. I hope everything turns out as planned.

_Hey guys. Thanks for reading. Say if you have any idea to continue the story, just in case I'm in the wrong directions. And please will everybody review because I love reading reviews both positive and negative. Have a nice time reading the story._


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